A year ago, I walked past a spotted lanternfly on a city sidewalk. I saw the cardinal red wings spread wide and polka-dotted on the gray cement, so bright and invasive and out of place. I thought, "Oh, that's a spotted lanternfly," but now I can't even remember where I was, only that I was late. Remember when the spotted lanternflies first arrived? Bigger than moths and warning-light bright, hitchhiking west across the agriculture states, rumored to be capable of destroying grapes, apples, hops, trees, lives. They will swarm in the air, suck dry the crops, leave sticky residue on your kids' monkey bars, the experts warned. We were supposed to kill them. Swat, stomp, squish, spray, whatever and however you can. They are invasive, they are dangerous, they spread like wildfire, like the plague, they will come after your farms and your children and your children's children. Danger bug Kill and report the bugs, the experts told us. Call the USDA, the FDA, the FBI, ...

In my family, as in most of America, the women do the carrying. All the things that weigh heavy in a life are bound up in our arms. My Grandma Norma was a librarian in Cincinnati who carried my mom through her tender years in a one-bedroom apartment following a marriage annulment in the 1950s. A single working mother in an age where opportunities were legally limited, she also carried books—wobble-wheeled carts piled high and endless heavy stacks in her arms, back when words needed paper to survive. I picture her in neat blouses and long swaying skirts, her dark hair echoing the waves, as she walked the aisles of wooden-shelved rooms that housed "Invisible Man," "The Feminine Mystique," and the Pentagon Papers from the New York Times. At some point, probably in her middle years, her body declared war on itself: rheumatoid arthritis. The joints of her limbs grew warm, swollen, and reluctant. Angry synovial membranes in her fingers and elbows bound tendons to scar tis...

In May 1987, my family piled into a distressingly bright orange Volvo station wagon and left Pennsylvania for southeast Texas. My new home was shockingly different. It was hot, with air like split pea soup full of bugs that bite. Unfamiliar humidity perfumed the breeze. People talked funny, said my name wrong. I felt like a foreigner, a sore thumb, a shirt on inside out and backwards.  When we arrived, my brother and I had to be enrolled in school, which required an in-person placement test. I wanted everyone to like me and make a good impression, so I dressed up. I put on my favorite white romper with the lettuce edge and primary-colored balloon print. A bow of looped shoelaces clipped in front of my ponytail. A couple water-filled glitter bracelets nearly sliding off my skinny wrists. And I wore my my most awesome shoes.   They were violent pink dress-up heels with black soles. Pretend play shoes. Not soft like the clear plastic jellies I wore that got pebbles lodged i...

In first grade, I made my mother a vase. Crafted with masking tape, shoe polish, and a repurposed glass jar, it was a new item designed to look vintage. With age comes value and significance, but I didn't know that yet.    The teacher guided us in this creation. First, tear off dozens of pieces of one-inch-wide masking tape that feels like paper, but resembles dry sand and smells vaguely of chemicals. Don’t try to make the ends neat, she said, the more jagged the better.  Next, plaster the entire canister with masking tape positioned every which way. We want mess, we want disorganization. Embrace imperfection. Make it complete enough to cover each square millimeter of the glass, overwhelming and canceling out everything it used to be.  Then, dip old rags or torn bits of t-shirts into dark brown Kiwi-brand shoe polish. Use the globs of stain that smells like gasoline and sweet wax to paint over the taped canister. Watch it change from ecru to sienna, from a known thin...

On Sunday mornings, I worship at the altar of the washing machine. While the pious sit in pews next to stained-glass windows, I sit alone cross-legged on the floor outside of my laundry room. It is a convocation of one. Each article of clothing I touch is holy because it smells of my children -- a mix of familiarity and the musk of youth. Cloth by cloth, I examine the fabric for this week's stains -- pewter gray slash of pencil lead, green crush of fresh-earth grass, brown drips of chocolate milk. The mild marks of those yet unencumbered by adulthood. I anoint them with stain treatments and set them aside, then sort the rest into mounds of darks, colors, and once-bright-as-snow whites. It's like separating the sheep from the goats, managing this alike-but-not-the-same. See how big his shirt is compared to hers; how big they both are compared to the new infant onesies I once washed reverently and continuously. I am reminded of marks I thought would never come out, both on the cl...

Ten years ago, I was still deeply in the trenches of being momma to two very young kids. Every evening after putting them to bed - at the time, they were 3 years old and about 6 months old - I performed a sweep of the downstairs. I gathered together the detritus of the day which small people are so good at spreading around, put things with like things so they could be found and scattered again the next day, and put each item in its place for the night like I was tucking it into bed, too. Little People sound-effects farm and five figures stored in the silo, check. Little People tractor and two figures chucked in the wagon, check. Ten rainbow colored stacking cups, each smaller than the last, check. Ten mini board books in a handled carry box, check. Ten washable Crayola markers in the box, check. But one night, while my husband was out of town for union business and I was barely holding it together for the three of us who were all cranky, overstimulated, and exhausted, one marker ca...